Telemedicine in Australia

Article on Telemedicine in Australia in 'The Australian':

THOUSANDS of patients from rural areas could be spared the expense and hassle of travelling to a major city to see a specialist if health systems made more effort to make good use of communications technologies.

Various systems -- collectively known as "telemedicine", in which patients consult doctors remotely using systems such as real-time video links -- are already available for such long-distance consultations.

But experts from a Queensland centre that has been pioneering the use of telemedicine have warned uptake of the technology to date has been marred by poor planning and a greater interest in buying hardware than in teaching staff how to use it, or making it easy for them to do so.